On Jul 11, Russell Coker wrote:
> I've never seen the Canadian PM declaring war on terrorists or drug
> users/smugglers. The Canadian government isn't planning to invade the
> Netherlands if their soldiers go on trial for war crimes.
<INTERNATIONAL_POLITICS_LECTURE_MODE>
The reality of the situation is that if George Bush (or Bill Clinton
or any other U.S. president except possibly Jimmy Carter - we couldn't
even take him seriously, so I don't expect anyone else did) says
"jump" to Jean Chretien, Jean is going to jump. Jean may claim he's
not jumping, or dress it up in fancy terms to make it look like George
isn't telling him to jump, but in the end he will, in fact, jump.
Whether he calls it "hopping", "elevating oneself into the
atmosphere", or whatever, it is still jumping, and any objective
observer will still describe it as such.
(In this previous paragraph, you can also use the name of the leader
of any other country that depends on the United States to stop it from
being invaded/nuked by $BAD_COUNTRY_OF_THE_WEEK. For example, it
reads equally well with the names "Tony Blair" and "Gerhard Schroder"
in it, much as it reads with the name of the Australian prime
minister, John Howard.)
</INTERNATIONAL_POLITICS_LECTURE_MODE>
To put it another way, Mr. Chretien is fully cooperating in the "war
on terror", even though he isn't calling it that. If you were on the
U.S.'s list of "bad people from Australia", you'd be rotting in a
Canadian jail today. Of course, that presumes that the Australian
government hadn't already arrested you before you left (much more
likely IMO).
I now return you to your regularly scheduled program of idealistic,
pie-in-the-sky fantasies about how your country is wholly independent
of the whims of the global hegemon.
Chris
--
Chris Lawrence <chris@lordsutch.com> - http://www.lordsutch.com/chris/